


Open Window

by neon_lights21



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Angst, Gen, References to Depression, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 02:29:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20107702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neon_lights21/pseuds/neon_lights21
Summary: San wasn’t sure when it had all started. To him, it was just small things he could ignore. It was just another snowflake he saw when he looked at the sky, but he never bothered to look down. And when he did, all he saw was a huge snowball speeding down a slope towards him, so large that it obscured his view of the sun. The descent was anything but quick. He had to live quite a while in anticipation, for it could come crashing down on him any second, without warning and he would have to deal with the messy aftermath.





	Open Window

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER! WARNING!
> 
> _I'm so sorry..._

San wasn’t sure when it had all started. To him, it was just small things he could ignore. It was just another snowflake he saw when he looked at the sky, but he never bothered to look down. And when he did, all he saw was a huge snowball speeding down a slope towards him, so large that it obscured his view of the sun. The descent was anything but quick. He had to live quite a while in anticipation, for it could come crashing down on him any second, without warning and he would have to deal with the messy aftermath. 

For months, he felt like he was teetering on a wobbly wooden bridge between two cliffs, waiting for a gust of wind to knock him down into nothingness. But it was ok, he could hide everything behind a smile and truthfully, sometimes he didn’t even feel there was anything wrong. He could joke around, laugh and be goofy with his members just fine, the problem was the nights he tossed around in bed with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company. Those were the nights he hopped on a train of self-loathing and self-pity that didn’t stop until he fell asleep or, on the worst nights, until his alarm signalled him that he needed to start his day.

Being busy with work was a wonderful thing. He had always loved singing, and to be able to do it professionally with people whose company he enjoyed was a blessing to him. Even when he felt demotivated and all he wanted to do was to stay in bed forever, seeing his members work so hard made him do the same out of a sense of obligation and of course, guilt. He knew that it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for the others either, so he had to suck it up a little and do his job. He ignored everything he felt, passing it off as stress or promising himself that he would talk about it to someone else later. 

(He never did.)

***

Spontaneous get togethers were always more fun than the ones that had been planned days, sometimes weeks in advance. There was something magical about the excitement and fondness he felt when he suddenly realized that everyone was sitting in the living room eating dinner and having fun like they had no worries. It was small, but San felt like he was having the time of his life. But just like everything else, good times never last forever and the snowball crashed on his body with full force, when he was least expecting it.

That night, as he lay in his bed, facing the wall, he stopped breathing for a while to try and make the pain in his chest go away. There was nothing he could do when tears started spilling from his eyes. There was no way he could stop them from falling. He clasped a hand on his mouth to muffle the sound of his sobs, biting his palm in the process. Why was he crying after being so happy? Why couldn’t he _ stay _ happy? 

He had every reason to be. 

***

He had heard of people who cut themselves and frankly, he didn’t understand why someone would deliberately hurt themselves in order to feel better. It seemed counter-intuitive to combat pain with more pain. They said it helped them release tension and in a way, they were trying to punish themselves, but he still didn’t understand how someone could feel that desperate.

He kind of started understanding when he felt so anxious that he needed to take it out on something or someone. Or himself. He didn’t know why he was feeling so scared. It wasn’t his first concert. It was a perfectly normal concert in Korea, so he didn’t even have to worry about not being able to communicate with fans. His legs bounced up and down as he told himself that there was nothing to worry about. Everything had gone well during rehearsals. No mistakes could possibly happen. 

He dug his nails into the palm of his hands, which didn’t work very well. It distracted him enough right before the performance, when he was too focused on making his trick work that he stopped thinking about ways he could screw up on stage for a while. But it never made the gnawing feeling in his chest go away. 

He started randomly hitting himself when he was alone and he was assaulted by memories of embarrassing himself that his mind twisted and analyzed and over analyzed to a point where he was convinced that he was a complete failure. A slap on the face usually distracted him. It was like slapping the thought out of his brain, which was why he had to run to the bathroom during their break in dance practice. He looked at himself in the mirror and he was taken aback by the sight of the dark bags under his eyes and how hollow his cheeks were. He looked dead to himself. Maybe sleeping for three hours for three days in a row wasn’t the right way to stop thinking about how much he was repulsed by himself. It certainly affected his ability to move his body in time to dance properly. He felt like he was falling asleep every time he blinked and his limbs weren’t listening to his brain fast enough. He was screwing everything up for himself. The others and their choreographer must think he is lazy and that he doesn’t care enough about the group.

He huffed as he lifted a hand up to slap himself, hesitating for a second before actually doing it. His cheek stung at the impact. He felt like crying. It didn’t make him feel better, but at least he got it out of his system. He checked his face in the mirror to make sure there wasn’t any redness, pressing a cold hand against his cheek to alleviate the stinging. It hurt, and he still felt like his chest would burst from the effort of trying not to start sobbing then and there, but he had to punish himself somehow for being so selfish and such an asshole. He didn’t have the right to bring others down with his misery. And after a few minutes, the weight was gone from his chest, but he somehow felt worse. 

_ Useless. _

_ *** _

He had never hurt himself on purpose in the more traditional sense, as in causing wounds that actually drew blood. Sure, he exacerbated accidental wounds, scratching them and doing everything to hinder the healing process as much as possible. Did he actually like the pain? Or did some sick part of him want the others to see him in pain and feel sorry for him? He didn’t know, but it was revolting either way.

The last straw was what was supposed to be a normal day in his life. He had to get up early in the morning and attend schedules until late in the night. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary except for the fact that he had woken up feeling the worst he had in months. He had seen it coming though. The previous week had been an endless free fall towards a pit of despair. He somehow ended up arguing with Hongjoong and Yeosang at the same time over something so small he couldn’t even remember it anymore. That was enough to make the atmosphere tense and stifling for the rest of the day, which wasn’t going well either way. He kept messing up his parts during recording so much the producer told him they would record his parts another day. He had screwed up the one thing he was supposed to be good at. He was just wasting everyone’s time, from his members to the producers to their manager. They didn’t have time to deal with his patheticness. He had no excuse for not being able to sing properly. He wasn’t sick, so why couldn’t he get it right?

Every small thing out of his control made his blood boil. He had to keep himself from yelling at Wooyoung to stop bouncing his legs, or from slapping Mingi to shut him up on the ride home because he was truly, utterly exhausted. He was tired and hungry and his head hurt and all he wanted was a moment of quiet and alone time. He needed control over something. He could drop dead in his bed after figuring that out. He glared at Hongjoong when he asked San if he was alright as they were getting out of the van. Why did he even care? San still hadn’t apologized to him for yelling at him that morning so why was he suddenly concerned? Was he just doing it to look good in front of the rest of them?

No, Hongjoong wasn’t that type of person to put on an act to make himself look like a good person. It was San’s fault. He didn’t know how to appreciate a person who cared about him. What did he even do to deserve it?

He needed to be alone and think. Everything that had happened that day seemed so out of his control that it almost made him scream in anger and frustration because even though he couldn’t have prevented any of it, he should have been able to do it. It was his fault and he needed to do something about it. He needed control over his own existence.

It was something he had been lurking at the back of his mind for quite some time and now was his chance to try and see for himself if it actually helped, which was why he found himself in the bathroom going through a cabinet to find his razor. He picked it up with shaking hands as he sat down on the edge of the bathtub. He picked at the edges of the razor with his fingers, finally managing to free the blades from their plastic body, letting all but one of them to fall to the floor. With the blade in his right hand, he pulled down his trousers and stared at his exposed legs. His heart started pounding and his breathing quickened as he slashed the blade against his thigh. It stung a little, but there was no blood. He did it again, and again, and again. He felt like crying. He was supposed to be bleeding, but he didn’t have the guts to make the cuts deeper. He couldn’t even hurt himself right. Then he saw blood. His stomach sank and his chest constricted as his breathing quickened. He hastily pressed some toilet paper against his wounds. There were seven of them. He didn’t even care if it wasn’t hygienic or that he could get an infection and it would be really hard and awkward to explain to his members and the doctor why exactly that had happened and then they would either kick him out of Ateez or lock him up in a hospital until they deemed him sane enough to live like a normal person and even then everyone would probably start walking on eggshells around him and nothing would ever be normal again. 

He needed to get out of the bathroom and forget everything that had happened in the last fifteen minutes. He pulled up his trousers as he flushed the toilet paper down the toilet, instead opting for some bandaids to put on his thighs. 

He dropped down on his bed. His head felt like it was filled with gel with the way it was swimming. His heart rate increased with each breath he took and he felt like his stomach was trying to swallow itself. No amount of swallowing helped him get rid of the lump in his throat. Self-harm had been an abstract thought up until that moment. It was something other people did to themselves. It was supposed to make him feel better, but it didn't. He felt even worse than before. He couldn’t calm himself down no matter how much he hugged that damn blanket and all those plushies in his bed. He got up after two hours of tossing and turning, choosing to pace in the living room and hoping no one would wake up. He turned on the TV, immersing himself in a rerun of some stupid show that no one ever watched. After a while, he got used to it. It didn’t hurt anymore. He was distracted enough that he could go back to sleep. He was perfectly fine and calm. Maybe that was the magic of hurting himself. He would have to distract himself so much that he didn’t think about anything else for a while. Nothing stopped him from scratching at the cuts whenever he felt stressed in the next week though.

***

It was scary how he could fake it for the camera. He had become so good at it that it made him question whether there was something wrong or if he was just being too sensitive and selfish. He was a ball of positive energy, goofiness, jokes and powerful singing and dancing in front of cameras, but as soon as he stepped off the stage, he plummeted down to a pit of sadness and longing. It felt like being on top of the roller coaster, anticipating the fall that came slowly, until it hit him so suddenly it left him sick to his stomach.

As soon as they finished saying their goodbyes to the fans, San ran backstage, trying to find somewhere to sit down. He didn’t like the feeling bubbling in his chest. He didn’t like it at all. The couch squeaked when he threw himself on it and hid his face in his hands. He took in a shaky breath, and lowered his head even more in the crooks of his arms. He didn’t like the feeling in his chest. It was foreign. Weird. Horrible. He wanted nothing but for it to go away. And it did, when a single tear ran down his cheek. Then another, and another, and another until he was sobbing and gasping for breath. A hand found its way on his neck, carefully massaging the knots that had formed due to his hunched position. Another hand was on his shoulder.

“What’s wrong?”

_ I don’t know. _

“San, why are you crying?”

_ I don’t know. _

“It’s ok, look at me.”

San raised his head and was faced with Hongjoong’s warm smile. It almost made him cry harder. Almost.

“I’m sorry,” he started. “I guess- I don’t- I’m just really overwhelmed by- by the concert and the performance and the fans and everything.”

Someone offered him some tissues and he gladly took them, hiding his red and tear-stained face. The hand on his neck, that he had identified as Wooyoung’s, moved around his shoulder to engulf him in a weird half hug, but it felt good nonetheless.

“Oh look!” Wooyoung shouted in his ear, “here’s a cake to celebrate and cheer you up!”

“I think our manager is clairevoyant… he knew you would cry so he bought you a cake…”

San wiped his face, laughing and crying at the same time as Jongho shoved the cake in his lap, already cutting it up to share it with the others.

He wondered how the knife would feel in his chest.

***

In his mind, he never stopped crying.

They were in their van, going home from a radio show. San was tired. Really tired. And he was crying again. He seemed to be crying every day. If it wasn’t right after every single schedule, be it practice or a photo shoot or a TV appearance, it was in the dead of the night. He would be in his bed, trying not to be too loud. It was tiring, which was why he couldn’t wait until they got home and everyone to go to sleep to cry. He pulled up his face mask and adjusted his cap to cover his eyes and lay his head on Seonghwa’s shoulder, who was sitting next to him. He kept his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep so Seonghwa wouldn’t ask any questions. He knew the elder wasn’t stupid enough to be fooled like that, but he also knew that he wouldn’t do anything to make him feel uncomfortable in front of everyone. His clothes rustled as he turned his head to take a better look at San. San felt him move back for a moment, surprised at the sudden contact, but then Seonghwa settled back into his seat, taking San's right hand, which had been resting on his thigh, and tracing patterns on it without much thought to comfort him as he engaged in some conversation San couldn't bring himself to care enough about to listen to it. Seonghwa held his hand until they arrived home.

He hated himself for taking advantage of Seonghwa’s kindness.

“Why were you crying last night?” Seonghwa asked him the next morning. He should have seen it coming.

“I was stressed.”

“That’s not the first time you’ve cried in the past few weeks because of stress.”

“It’s been busy.”

“San, you can tell me anything,” Seonghwa sighed. “So please, tell me what’s wrong.”

“There’s nothing wrong, really,” he said with a smile, shaking his head. 

There was honestly nothing to tell. He didn’t know _ what _ to tell. It would be easy to put an arm around his shoulder or to even hug him. His body desperately yearned for someone’s comforting touch and he could feel his skin tingling and gravitating towards Seonghwa. But what would he think? He might think that he was being clingy after not touching him for so long. Had he even noticed? Probably not, but he couldn't risk looking clingy to anyone. They might start asking questions San wasn’t ready to answer. He might never be ready to answer them, so he forced his legs to stay put and flashed a smile to Seonghwa before hurrying out of the room and ducking into the bathroom before Seonghwa could ask him more questions..

It wasn’t fair on him, though. He was just trying to help. But San was ungrateful or maybe too proud or too afraid to accept his help. What would happen if he did? Would they force him to talk about everything? Would they send him to therapy? Would they lock him up in a hospital and kick him out of Ateez? No, he couldn’t risk anything.

***

He liked winters because he could wrap himself in as many blankets as he wanted to without looking weird or feeling uncomfortably warm. No, the warmth he felt when he pulled the blanket as tight as he could around himself and his plushies was welcome and soft and comfortable. It helped lessen the pain he felt it his chest. It made him feel less lonely. How could he even feel lonely when he was constantly in the company of seven other people? He didn’t understand. And he didn’t understand why he needed to wrap his own arms around himself to replicate the feeling of the hugs Wooyoung gave him before San had started pushing him and everyone else away.

It wasn’t as good as a real hug, though. He did more than enough fanservice in front of the cameras, but a real hug when he really needed it felt different and he couldn’t remember the last time he had received one. Whenever he accidentally touched anyone or someone put a hand on his shoulder while speaking, he felt shivers run through his body. Then the touch was gone all too soon and he was left yearning for more. He wanted more. He needed more. He was aware that it was a basic human need, but as long as it didn’t kill him he could endure it.

Would it really not kill him?

***

Days off were supposed to be fun and relaxing, but San was already missing working everyday until he was too exhausted to think about anything else as he lay awake in his bed. It was silly. Just a few days before he wanted nothing more than a break from the nonstop activities he was doing, but now that he was actually on break he found himself missing work. What was he even supposed to do for a whole week? The others had plans, but he didn’t. Some of them would definitely want to go home, but he didn’t. He didn’t have the energy to answer questions. Any type of questions. From the simplest _ “How are you?” _ to the ones that would require days to answer. He didn’t like answering half of the questions asking him what he had been doing because even he didn’t know what he had been doing. The only thing he could come up with when he thought about the past few months were random, jumbled memories that he didn’t know how to connect together to form a coherent line of thought. So no, he wasn’t answering any questions.

He woke up to sunlight seeping through the window. His eyes were heavy and he didn’t want to get up just yet even though he felt rested enough and he didn’t have a headache for the first time in months? Years? Whatever. He just wanted to go back to sleep, so he wrapped his blanket around himself and closed his eyes again.

He ended up doing nothing for the whole week. He stayed in bed all day for the first two days, barely managing to get up to go to the bathroom or eat something even though the food tasted like paper. He made up excuses whenever anyone invited him out to do something. 

What was the appeal in going to a restaurant with Jongho and Yunho? It was his favourite restaurant, but he didn’t have much of an appetite. He would end up awkwardly staring around the restaurant until Jongho and Yunho finished eating. He wouldn’t enjoy the small amount of food he would force himself to eat anyway and there would be other people watching him, waiting for him to make a mistake to judge him. Realistically, he knew it wasn’t true, but when was he ever known for being realistic?

Why would he want to go shopping with Wooyoung and Mingi? The mall would be crowded with people. There would be so many people his skin would start crawling the minute he stepped in. Besides, he had enough clothes. The idea of trying on more clothes and buying them didn’t sound appealing at all.

Why would he go on a walk with Yeosang? He would have to actually get up and shower. All he wanted to do was stay in bed and sleep. Why was everyone insisting on taking him out somewhere? He was perfectly fine with staying home all week. Why couldn’t they just leave him alone? Couldn’t they see how lazy he was? Why were they wasting their energy on him? He wasn’t worth it.

“Get the fuck out of my room!” he shouted at Yeosang, who flinched away before an angry look found its way on his face. “I said I don’t want to go on a fucking walk with you! What part of it don’t you understand?”

He needed to be alone. He couldn’t let the others see him like this. What would they think? They would probably be worried and he couldn’t handle it. No, they would be angry. Rightfully so. He was just being rude and insensitive. Yeosang just wanted to hang out. He didn’t mean to make San angry. Neither did he, but it was better to let Yeosang think otherwise. He had to let his frustration out.

And his wish was granted. Yeosang left the room and slammed the door behind him without uttering a word, but the rattling of the walls was enough to make San feel even smaller than he was already feeling. He still felt angry, but at himself, just like every time things like this happened. He wanted to blame Yeosang, but he was perfectly aware that he had brought this on himself and the fight was completely his fault. He had to go and apologise, but would Yeosang even be willing to hear his apology? Would Yeosang accept it for the sake of the group but secretly hate him?

San picked up the first thing he could get his hands on and threw it on the floor to stop his tears from falling. But only then did he realize what he had done. The framed picture that his grandmother had given him for his birthday lay on the floor beyond repair, shattered into hundreds of pieces. San felt tears stinging his eyes and he rubbed at them in frustration. It was a stupid thing to cry over. It could have happened to anyone. He could have broken it by accident. He was sure his grandmother wouldn’t be angry at him if it had been an accident. Or even if it hadn’t. But he was disappointed in himself for acting so childishly impulsive. His hands shook as he picked up the pieces from the floor, not caring whether he injured himself. Once he was done, he shoved the picture in a drawer, not willing to look at it just to be reminded of his shame. 

What a stupid thing to cry over.

He tried to think of a happy memory. He squeezed his brain for just a drop of happiness, but there was none. All the pain from the bad memories had seeped through and contaminated the good ones. He used to be able to feel the excitement and joy when he thought about the time he used to spend with his family without a single care in the world. Now it was like looking at a picture so old that the faces that were once smiling had faded away. He couldn’t feel anything when he thought about those times. It was difficult for him to think about a good memory. His brain had decided to put the same painful ones on loop for him to watch forever.

He was a disappointment to the world

***

It was time for their Saturday night talks, where they shared anything from their deepest insecurities to the dumbest things that had happened to them during the week. He used to enjoy them. It was nice to have casual conversations without having to worry about his every move being captured on camera for the whole world to see. One small mistake could cost him his career. He didn’t have to pretend anything in front of his members. At least, didn’t use to. He used to look forward to talking to the others, to share everything with them. Now he just wanted to sleep, so he pretended to be asleep when Yunho came in their room to tell him to come to the living room with him. He opened his eyes when he heard Yunho tiptoeing his way out of the room, shutting the door carefully behind him. He wondered if the others would think he was being selfish for sleeping through their talks. Maybe they thought he didn’t like them? Or that he didn’t like being in Ateez? Or that he thought he was better than them?

He would never be better than them, or anyone for that matter.

He couldn’t help but eavesdrop when he suddenly heard his name in the unintelligible hums coming from the living room. He made his way to the wall closest to the living room as quietly as possible.

“I know I shouldn’t have done this, but the other day I found a notebook on San’s bed. I thought it was lyrics or something, but it was a diary. I read some stuff that really made me worried…”

His whole body went cold as he stumbled back from the wall, blocking out Yunho’s voice. He had read his diary. He had read every single disgusting thing he had written in that cursed notebook. He shouldn’t have been so careless to put it on his bed. Or to even have a notebook as a diary. Who even did that anymore? He should have used his phone or his computer. Now Yunho must think of him as a pathetic, attention seeking, needy grown man who didn’t know how to manage his insecurities. A lump formed in his throat and he hugged his knees, feeling pressure behind his eyes, but torn between letting tears fall and keeping it all in. In the end, he didn’t have a say in the matter. His body decided that it wouldn’t let the tears spill and put San out of misery. No, it wasn’t just his mind torturing him now, his whole body had turned against him.

He definitely didn’t want to hear more, but some twisted part of him needed to know how much exactly Yunho had discovered in order to control the damage he had caused with his own stupidity. So he dragged himself to the wall again and pressed his ear against it.

“We shouldn’t talk about him when he’s not here. And we definitely shouldn’t talk about the things he wrote in his diary because that’s just going to make things worse. He’s going to lose his trust in us if he finds out. He might have written those things while he was upset and didn’t really mean them.”

“I know, but I’m worried about him. He cries himself to sleep almost every night and he thinks I never wake up. I’ve tried confronting him but you know how he is these days. He barely talks to us.”

So he woke Yunho up every time he cried in his bed? He thought he had found a great solution to his crying problem but that had caused even more problems. His goal was to not worry anyone and he had done the exact opposite. Yunho was worried and he was making everyone else worried. His legs felt weird. He felt like he needed to bounce them to take all the anxious energy out of them. He only had one job: not letting anyone notice anything about him, which was hard considering that he cried almost everyday, sometimes in front of the members. He knew he had been negligent in some aspects. He hadn’t gone out of his way too much to hide that something was wrong, either. Some part of him still wanted them to just _ notice _ and ask him what was wrong. And they did, but all he was ever good at was pushing people away, so that was exactly what he did, brushing everyone off with a _ “Yeah, I’m just tired” _ that he knew no one believed but no one questioned either. How do you even talk about something like that? It was so big and complicated that he wouldn’t know where to start. Everything was so intertwined that talking about only one thing left out so many other reasons why he felt like everything was wrong. It was this huge boulder in his chest constantly pulling him towards deep waters despite the fact that he didn’t know how to swim. He wanted - _ needed _\- to get it out in order to be able to stay afloat and breathe. But it was so big and heavy that he didn’t know whether he would be able to get rid of it without drowning himself along with it.

The diary sat in front of him as if it were mocking him. He wanted to throw it against the wall and burn it, to make it seem like it had never existed because every time he looked at it he felt anger bubble up in his chest and some hatred towards Yunho, who never deserved any of it. He was just trying to help a friend but San didn’t want to accept it and it was his loss. How easy would it be to just step out of his room and tell them he had heard everything and then admit to whatever he had been feeling. They would tell him it was alright, that they would help him, that he could talk to them whenever he wanted. San stayed in his bed, though, under the blanket that felt like a safe space.

***

The next morning, his stomach hurt so bad he just curled in himself on his bed. Standing up hurt, breathing hurt, talking hurt. The dryness in his mouth and his irregular breathing was starting to give him a headache that pulsated through his skull with each heartbeat and then proceeded to run down his neck. He wanted to get up and pretend like nothing was wrong, but his body had betrayed him again. He couldn’t even stand up without doubling over after two seconds and feeling nauseous. He wanted to go to practice, but he knew he wouldn’t last long and he would just be a burden to the others and worry them too much. In the end, he let Hongjoong know that he wasn’t feeling well so he could skip out on the morning practices. 

“It’s alright, I’ll let the manager know,” Hongjoong said with a smile that hid the hint of concern in his eyes. “Just rest and relax. You need it.”

“Yeah, thanks hyung,” San mumbled, refusing to meet Hongjoong’s eyes. 

He didn’t know why he felt like crying as Hongjoong left, shutting the door carefully behind him. He didn’t deserve such a good friend.

***

He scared himself sometimes. Suicide had always been a sneaky thought that lurked in the back of his mind, looking for the best moment to latch itself onto his train of thoughts. He was afraid of having to live with those thoughts for the rest of his life. Everyone said that hard times were temporary, everything would get better. But he couldn’t see how things could get better. He wanted to live a day like he wasn’t dragging himself forward in life again. He had so many things to be grateful for. Why did he need to kill himself? He was scared of himself when his mind became invaded by thoughts of killing himself. His heart would try to leap out of his throat when he looked down the street from their balcony, or when he looked at the trains passing by so fast they made his hair a mess. It was scary to think about dying. He didn’t know what would happen afterwards. Uncertainty was something San was so afraid of he buried the fear deep in his mind, and death was exactly that: uncertainty.

***

He had always liked keeping the window in his bedroom open. It was especially nice when there was a fresh breeze right after raining that curled around his body and made everything smell like life. The window was now open, letting in that particular breeze that took him back to when he would sit in his room after finishing his homework and look out of the window, listening to every passerby’s conversation or just closing his eyes and relaxing. But he was anything but relaxed as he leaned down to look at the cars in the street below. It wasn’t the first time he had thought about jumping. Would it be the last time? No one could survive a fall from that height. He didn’t want to go away. He didn’t want to die, but the promise of ending the seemingly never ending pain that he had been feeling for years was so, so reassuring. It lured him in, making his legs move and climb up the desk to reach the window. He put one leg on the other side of the window, and then another, and pushed himself forward until he was sitting on the sill. He breathed in the cool fresh evening air, squeezing himself down as if to glue himself to the window sill, legs dangling down the building. His whole body quivered as he clutched the window’s cold, metal frame. It was still wet from the afternoon drizzle. He had never been afraid of heights, but he felt dizzy when he looked down, seeing the cars speeding past the apartment building. His eyes were stinging. He wasn’t sure whether from the wind or tears.

It was getting dark outside and the streets were getting busier, with office workers and school children returning home. He used to feel envious when he saw people have fun when he wasn’t feeling well. He desperately wanted to believe that he was loved, that he would be missed, but a voice at the back of his mind told him otherwise and it dangerously sounded similar to his own. 

That didn’t matter now, though. He wasn’t really feeling anything and it was even scarier than all the times he felt like he could rip his chest out to stop _feeling_. He didn’t want to have a plastic bag wrapped around his heart. He wanted to feel something other than despair and sadness. He wanted to be happy. He sometimes was, but it never seemed to be enough. He wanted to be as happy as possible. He felt stuck in a narrow cell. He didn’t want to feel empty, like a ticking bomb that could do something reckless and stupid at any moment and hurt everyone around him. He didn’t want to feel sad either. Why should he continue living when his mind turned everything, even the memories he had once cherished, against him, contorting them to a point where they were unrecognisable blurs of self-doubt. It would be easy to just jump and end it all, to rid the world of the one and only Choi San, the whiny, needy, pathetic, selfish, useless excuse of a person that he was.

He would be gone forever.

Gone and eventually forgotten. Whatever impact he could’ve made would be gone.

All he had to do was lean forward a bit more.

**Author's Note:**

> I probably used too many metaphors in this lmao.  
"Gone and eventually forgotten. Whatever impact he could’ve made would be gone." These sentences are not mine. I found them on a reddit post and I really liked them so I decided to include them in my fic, with a few adjustments.  
As always, comments and kudos are appreciated! Please let me know what you think about this fic!


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